#7 



lA 



ON 



)^n Ancient Jluman Footprint 



FROM NICARAGUA. 



By DANIEL G^' BRINTON, M.D. 



Read before the American Philo^piftcaf>Spciety, Nov. 18th, 1887. 



J- 



^ 









Proceedings llmer, Philos. Soc, 




1887.] 4d/ [Brinton. 

On an Ancient Human Footprint from Nicaragua. 

By I). G. Brinton, M.D. 

{Bead before the American Philosophical Society, Nov. 18i/i, 1 881.) 

The discovery of human footprints in volcanic rocks near the 
shore of Lake Managua, Nicaragua, under circumstances which 
seemed to assign them a remote antiquity, has been announced 
for several years.* We owe thanks especially to Dr. Earl Flint, 
of Rivas, Nicaragua, for information about this discover)^, and 
for sending several specimens to the United States. Four of 
these are in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge, 
and recently, I have myself received one from Dr. Flint, to- 
gether with several letters describing the locality. The posses- 
sion of this material has induced me to present, along with its 
description, a general review of the subject. 

The surface of the Republic of Nicaragua presents in nearly 
all parts the signs of enormous volcanic activity. It is broken 
by a complex series of mountain ranges whose sides are scored 
with vast lava streams. Frequent earthquakes attest the 'con- 
tinued energy of the subterranean forces and prepare us for 
incidents of elevation and subsidence on an uncommon scale. 

The great lakes of Nicaragua and Managua are divided by a 
low plain through which flows the river Tipitapa connecting these 
sheets of water. South of this lowland rises a mesa or table- 
land 400 or 500 feet above the level of the lakes, and upon this 
stand the volcanic cones of Mombacho (4588 feet) and Masaya 
(29t2 feet). Beyond these, the land still rising, reaches its 
height in the Sierras de Managua, presenting the craters of the 
extinct volcanoes of Tizcapa, Nezcapa (Nehapa), and Asososco ; 
and further to the nortli-west, immediately upon the shores of the 
Lake Managua, the still smoking peaks of Chiltepec (2800 feet) 
and Momotombo (6121 feet). 

The last named (Momotombo) was active in 1852, and Masaya 
in 1858 and 1872, while Mombacho, though quiet, so far as we know, 
since the conquest, according to tradition, destroyed an impor- 
tant town just before that epoch, and its sides still reveal signs 

* The foUowing are the p -incipal references : Letter of Dr. Flint, dated Jan. 7, 1884, in 
the Americxm Antiquarian, March, 1884 ; 17«/t Repi>rt of the Peabody Museum for 1884, page 
356; 18th Report oi the sa.me, 18i3, page 414; Proceedings of the American Antiquarian So- 
ciety, 1884, p. 92. Letter of Dr. Flint in American Antiquarian, May, 18S5. 



Briiiton.] ^JO [Nov. 18, 

of terrific outbursts at no distant date. In the eruption of 
March, 18*12, Masaya vomited a lava stream two miles in width.* 

I quote these facts to show the volcanic character of the 
country and the powerful agencies at work there. 

For our present purpose, we have to confine our attention to 
the extinct volcano of Tizcapa. Like its neighbors, the cones 
of Nezcapa and Asososc6, it has long since burnt out its fires, 
and all three have changed their flaming craters into deep and still 
lakes, encircled by precipitous walls of congealed masses. Tiz- 
capa is about two and a-half miles from the shore of Lake Mana- 
gua, and in ancient times its molten streams found their way 
into the waters of the lake. Its eruptions were irregular, and 
evidently long periods of quiescence intervened between those of 
violent action, periods extended enough to allow the earlier tufa 
beds and lava streams to become covered with vegetation, the 
relics of which we find imbedded beneath later overflows. How 
much time this would require is a vital question in deciding the 
age of the footprints. These are found on the surface of the 
Jirst^ or lowest tufa bed, which itself rests upon a bed of yellow 
sand. 

Before proceeding to a discussion of the antiquity we may 
fairly assign to the relic, I shall insert Dr. Flint's description 
of the locality, and add a vertical section of the cutting in the 
quariy on the lake shore, in which the footprints are found. 
Both of these he has kindly sent me in a recent letter. 

" The Cordilleras east of Lake Nicaragua are a continuous 
succession of low mountains, spread out and gradually diminish- 
ing to the depression, where the outlet of Lake Nicaragua passes 
seaward by the San Juan river. In past ages the spur west of 
the lakes Nicaragua and Managua (formerly part of an ocean 
inlet) was the theatre of volcanic action seldom exceeded ; and 
its latent fires, out of the axial line, at Ometepetec and Momo- 
tombo, still smoke. These magnificent cones may continue to 
burn for ages, until they disappear, like their neighbors, leaving 
like tliem, an abyss to mark their location. 

" Zapatero has its deep lake, whose surface is but slightly above 
the waters of the one surrounding it ; north-west and near 
Granada, we look down from the edge of the old crater on a 

* See Pablo Levy, Notas sobre la HepuUica de Nicaragua, pp. 83, 84 (Paris, 1873), and A. 
Schiffman, Una Idea sobre la Geolqjia de Nicaragua, p. 125 (Managua, 1873). 



1887.] ^ 4d9 [Brinton. 

placid lake, whose four square miles of water are seldom stirred 
hy the wind, and whose depth has not yet been fathomed. 
When were the fires of this immense crater extinguished ? 

" Lake Masaya far exceeds that of Apoyo ; as we descend the 
deep ravines cut through the tufas to its margin, we see the work 
of centuries carrying- back this detritus to refill the abyss, and no 
perceptible diminution is noted. Passing on, we find the lakes 
Nehapa, Asososco, and Tizcapa, under similar conditions ; the 
latter near .Managua, furnished the material forming the tufas 
on which the footprints occur. 

. " These lakes at the time of the Spanish occupation, now nearly 
four centuries, presented nearly the same aspect as they do now; 
their rock-bound shores were covered with inscriptions, of which 
no ti-adition could be obtained of the tribes then occupying 
this region. The country was clothed with impenetrable forest 
that had sprung up on these arid wastes of tufa. We dig below 
this fertile soil, and after removing five well-marked beds of tufa, 
including a lower one of pure ash, we encounter a deposit of 
clay, a soil of other times, accumulated under circumstances 
familiar to that now on the surface. It also had its plants and 
trees. Among the former we see long liriaceous leaves impressed 
on the friable deposit. We ask, is this the soil of the first in- 
habitants ? Before deciding, we dig below, through four more 
deposits, with other accumulations in the seams, of pumice and 
volcanic sand. We reach a thin friable tufa, neai'ly black, about 
two inches thick ; removing it, we find a heavy deposit of tufa 
lying on yellow sand. This is the last in the series ; on its 
upper surface we find innumerable footprints of a people who 
had passed over it, at different times, when in a plastic state. 
Some sank deep in the mass, while others left superficial impres- 
sions. Now and then, a stray leaf of that horizon was trodden 
into the imprints ; others are on the friable under-surface ; they 
seem to differ from those above under the ash." 

Dr. Flint sends me a vertical section of the quarry from which 
the present specimen was taken. The location is about 800 feet 
from the shore and close to the town of Managua. At that 
point the overlying strata present a thickness of twenty-one feet 
beneath the surface soil, the most of the mass being compact 
tufa, similar in general appearance to the block bearing the im- 
print. 



Brinton.] 



440 



[Nov. 18, 



Vertical section, 21 feet in depth, of a Quarry on Lake Managua, showingi 
strata overlying human footprints. 



1. Surface soil, about 18 inches. 

2. Compact tufa, 20 Indies, separated from No. 3, by a sand 

seam. 

3. Compact tufa, 20 inches, separated from No. 4 by a sand 

seam. 

4. Compact tufa, 17 inches, separated from No. 5 by a sand. 

seam. 

5. Compact building tufa, 28 inches, resting on a seam of 

black sand. 



6. Solid, dark-blue ash, 14 inches. 

7. Hard clay, 12 or more inches, its surface presenting nume- 

, rous leaves (impressions, fossils), and remains of the- 
mastodon. 

8. Pumice, about two inches, unequally distributed. 

9. Sand drift, supporting the clay. 



10. Compact building tufa, 47 inches, separated from No. 11 
by a sand seam. 



11. Compact tufa, 5 to 7 inches. 

12. Black sand, 1 inch. 

13. Dark, friable tufa, 2 inches. 

14. Volcanic sand, containing fossil leaves, 1 inch. 

15. The dotted line shows the horizon of the foot- 

prints impressed upon number 

16. Compact building tufa, 47 inches. 



17. Yellow sand, believed to be Eocene (?) of undetermined 
thickness, containing numerous small shells. 



1 




2 




3 




4 




5 


1 


6 




7 




8 




9 




10 




11 




12 




13 




14 




15 
16 




17 





1837.] 4:4:1 [Brinton. 

Beginning with the lowest stratum, the yellow sand, the only- 
clue offered to ascertain its age, believed b}'^ Dr. Flint to be 
Eocene, is the shells which it offers in abundance, but apparently 
only of one species. They are small and well preserved. Dr. 
Flint transmitted a number of them for examination to Prof. 
Newcombe, of Cornell University, who considered them a new 
species, and has called them provisionally Pyrula nicaraguensis^ 
and adds that' the genus is represented in North America by but 
one other species, P. nevadensis Stearn. 

I submitted a number of them to my colleague at the Academy 
of Natural Sciences, Prof. Angelo Heilprin, who writes me : — 
" I should not like to pronounce positively upon the age of the 
deposit represented by the Nicaraguan shells, as by themselves 
they scarcely give direct evidence. But I should incline to the 
opinion that the deposit in question is more nearly Post-pliocene 
than Eocene, the specimens having a decidedly new look, and 
lacking the Eocene tertiary characters." 

Dr. Flint sent to the Peabody Museum a number of leaves 
from the deposit marked 1 4 on the section ; and I have recently 
inquired of the authorities of the Museum whether their age 
and character have been determined. They reply, that these 
characters have not yet been made out. 

The hard clay deposit, No. 7 of the plan, increases in thick- 
ness in other localities to ten or twelve feet. It is considered by 
Dr. Flint to represent a period of repose of many centuries, 
and on its surface, bones of the mastodon have been found at 
other points along the lake. It is the only deposit in the section 
which seems to demand considerable time ; and even here, the 
question will suggest itself whether a submergence of the lake 
shore for a few centuries or less might not be sufficient to pro- 
duce this deposit. The presence of the mastodon bones is no 
evidence of great antiquity. That huge herbivore lived in 
tropical America almost in historic times. A complete skeleton 
of one was found not long since in an artificial salt pond, con- 
structed by the Indians, near Concordia, Colombia. The pond^ 
with its bottom of paved stones together with the animal, had 
been entombed by a sudden landslide.* 

* See R. B. White, "Notes on the Aboriginal Races of the Northwestern Provinces of 
South America," in the Journal of the Aiithropological Institute of Great Britain, February,. 
1884, p. 244. 



Brinton.] 44 J [Nov. 18, 

The deposit of ashes, No. 6 on the section, is held by Dr. 
Flint to mark a period of volcanic energy of wide extent and 
important consequences in modifying the physical geography of 
the region. It led to the elevation of the coast range and the 
separation of Lal^e Nicaragua, previously a bay of the ocean, 
from the sea. Dr. Flint's expressions are : 

" West of Jinotepe a well was sunk one hundred and nineteen 
varas in search of water ; there this ash deposit is fifteen feet 
thick, at least twenty miles from the nearest crater. 

" We see many proofs, that the cataclysm enclosing Lake Nica- 
ragua (formerly salt water) was at the time of this ash erup- 
tion; while the tufas, previously ejected, pushed over the sea 
inlet at Tipitapa, enclosing that of Managua ; they were not 
broken up by the cataclysm, nor those at the quarry, and all on 
the northern slope ; nor the slip of coast north and south of 
San Kafael." 

Passing to a study of the tracks themselves, they are described 
by Dr. Flint as quite numerous and passing in both directions, 
that is, to and from the lake shore, from which the average dis- 
tance of those found is about 300 feet. The maximum stride 
was 18 inches, and the longest foot measured 10 inches. 

The specimen which he has sent me, and which is offered for in- 
spection [specimen presented], is the impression of a left foot. 
The total length of the impression is 9 J inches, the breadth at the 
heel 3 inches, at the toes 4-| inches. The apparent length of the 
foot itself was 8 inches. The instep was high, and the great toe 
large, prominent and exceeding in length the second toe. This 
last peculiarity has been by some considered of ethnic import- 
ance.* The greatest depth of the impression is at the ball of 
the foot, the weight being evidently thrown forward as in vigor- 
ous walking. At this part the maximal depression below the 
plane of the superfices is 2 inches. 

The footprints on the tufas at Managua are not the only ones 
discovered in that Republic by Dr. Flint. Others were seen on 
the southern slope of the Sierra de Managua, near the town of 

*See J. Park Harrison, " On the Relative Lengtli of the First Three Toes of the Human 
Foot," in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, February, 1884. The 
general conclusion seems to be that a long second toe indicates a lower stage of develop- 
ment . 



1887.] 'i'iO [Brinton. 

San Rafael. The character of this horizon is thus described by 
Dr. Flint in a letter to me : 

" Collateral evidence touching man's antiquity here, not less 
weighty, is found in the neighborhood. The eruptions covering 
the south-west slope, and the disturbance caused by one, along 
the ocean beach, elevating the coast range, affords us indisput- 
able evidence of Pliocene man. In descending the slope through 
immense ravines formed by the annual floods, we see enormous 
blocks of tufa, isolated by the removal of the material surround- 
ing them, showing that they had been uplifted by some mighty 
force and re-embedded in the resultant debris. 

" In 18t5-8 and 1883, I spent over a month visiting the coast- 
hills to the south-west about San Rafael, seeking out the limits 
of the cataclysm. 

" A strip of land, commencing at Bocano, extends along the 
coast about forty miles and widens out about San Rafael, termi- 
nating some eighteen miles above the latter place, at the base of 
the old primitive range. South-east of the town, a notable break 
in the upheaval shows that this strip was undisturbed, while the 
succession of hills to the east and south-east widens out and 
extends to the south at San Juan del Sur, and thence to Salinas 
bay. The force culminated against the south-west slope of the 
old primitive volcanoes mentioned, also shown north-west of San 
Rafael, where the tufa of the first eruption, on the slip of land 
mentioned, was unbroken, while in ravines near, the ocean sedi- 
ment of the upheaval overrides it, forced over it as the rise 
occurred near by to the east. 

" This sediment has been carried seaward by the rivers since 
formed. As they removed the debritus from the tufa, these were 
found covered with footprints of animals and man. One of these 
(sandal shod) was forwarded to the Peabody Museum. 

" Where the rivers have cut through the old sea sediment down 
to the primitive rock, we see beds of shells of many species, 
among them enormous oysters of an oblong figure, perfect fossils, 
yet unnamed. They are in situ. Their contents resemble slaked 
lime. All this shows a sudden elevation. A few can be seen at 
the National Museum with the fossil leaves in the rock above 
them, similar to those on the Managua clay under the ash erup- 
tion. The latter eruption broke up the clay and elevated the 



Brinton.] 444 [Nov. 18, 1887. 

coast range. On the neighboring hills innumerable shells are 
adherent to the fractured limestone, and south to those west of 
Rivas ; from there the limestone dips to south-east and is only 
about sixty metres above the sea between San Juan and Virgin 
bay, while part of the Rivas plateau was undisturbed." 

It will be observed that one of these footprints indicates the 
use of sandals or moccasins by the pedestrians of that day. 
None of this character have been reported from Managua. Un- 
doubtedly a society which wears shoes cannot be assigned to the 
earliest stages of human culture. Many of the natives of Cen- 
tral America to this day never protect the feet in any manner. 

In conclusion, I should say, that there can be no doubt of 
these being genuine human footprints. They are not of that 
mythical origin which the fancy of savage nations delights to 
imagine,* nor can there be the least doubt of their authenticity. 
Their antiquity remains uncertain. In regions at once tropical, 
fertile and volcanic, we may expect sudden upheavals and sub- 
sidences, and the ravages of the most violent outbursts are re- 
paired by a luxuriant vegetation with surprising rapidity. My 
own opinion is, that there is not sufficient evidence to remove 
tbem beyond the present Post-pliocene or Quaternary period. 

* See Dr. Richard Andree, on " Fassspureii," in his EUuwgraphische Parallelen und Ver- 
gleiche, s. 9-4 (Stuttgart, 1878). 



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